The last 8% — what happens when a tote can't be reused.

Recycling is a fallback, not a goal. But when a tote really is done, we shred & bale the HDPE for closed-loop recovery through a Great Lakes polymer reclaimer network.

30-Second Form

Recycle a fleet.

Fill in a few details — quantity, product type, the work you need done. We respond by email within one business day.

Why recycling is the last option

Mechanical recycling of HDPE shortens polymer chains. Each cycle reduces the material's performance — the resulting recycled HDPE is usable, but no longer at the spec required for a food-grade tote. So we route material to recycling only after we've exhausted the higher-value alternatives: reuse, modify-and-reuse, repurpose-as-non-container.

In a typical year we send ~8% of incoming totes to recycling. The other 92% stays in service in some form.

How the recycling lane works

Triage decision. Tote arrives. Cage and bottle inspected. If neither is salvageable for any non-container use, the unit is tagged for grind.
Separation. Bottle is removed from cage. Wood pallet is recovered for reuse or returned to the pallet recycler. Steel cage is recycled separately through a metals reclaimer.
Shred. HDPE is shredded into ~1-inch flake.
Bale. Flake is baled in 1,200-lb bales and stored under cover until pickup.
Pickup. Bales go to one of three Great Lakes polymer reclaimers we work with. Material ends up in industrial pipe, plastic lumber, or low-grade packaging.

Outside-fleet recycling

We'll take outside fleets in for recycling under two conditions:

You can document the previous contents (so we can route appropriately).
You bring at least 20 units per drop.

Cost is $14/tote for general industrial; food-only previous contents are free (we recover the polymer value). Cage steel is $0 either way — the metal value covers the handling.

Documentation

We provide a destruction certificate per fleet, listing serial numbers (where available), shred date, and destination reclaimer. Useful for environmental audits and waste-stream reporting.

The honest part

We don't make recycling sound like the hero. The hero is reuse. Recycling is what we do when reuse is genuinely impossible — and we'd rather you never have to use this service.

Recycling — the end of the line

The long-form file.

Bottles that genuinely can't be saved go to controlled HDPE recovery. We pre-sort by contents history so the pellet stream stays clean for downstream applications.

5–7%

Of our annual inventory that ends in recycling vs. reuse

88–92%

Bottle-to-pellet recovery yield by weight

$11–$28

End-of-life recovery value per unit

Deep dive

The detail behind the surface.

§ 01

Why a bottle ends up here

One of three reasons: age (12+ years), damage (cracked bottle wall, cracked outlet boss, failed cage welds), or contamination history that prevents return to fluid service (aromatic solvents, chlorinated compounds, unknowable contents).

HDPE pellet from the first two streams (clean contents history) goes into irrigation pipe, drainage tile, plastic lumber, and recycled extrusions. Pellet from the third stream is segregated and sent to industrial-only applications that don't include food or potable end-use.

Cages go to scrap metal recyclers at $0.04–$0.08/lb. Pallets either get reused (plastic and steel) or composted (wood when sound).